* U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower opening on Wall Street on Tuesday, following the previous session's sharp gains, with futures for the S&P 500 SPc1 down 0.18 percent, Dow Jones DJc1 futures down 0.26 percent and Nasdaq 100 NDc1 futures down 0.38 percent at 0925 GMT.
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower opening on Wall Street on Tuesday, following the previous session's sharp gains, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.18 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.26 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.38 percent at 0925 GMT (4:25 a.m. EST).
Financial markets did a quick about-face from the previous session's patterns on Tuesday with stocks falling, the dollar recovering some losses and gold dropping back a bit from record highs.
The dollar recouped some of its overnight losses on Tuesday, while Asian shares slipped as investors shrugged off upbeat U.S. home sale data and took light profits on recent rallies.
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Hewlett-Packard Co tripled the size of its share repurchase program to $12 billion as China sales and better profit margins on its services boosted quarterly earnings.
Hewlett-Packard Co said a strong performance in China and improved profit margins in its services business helped drive quarterly earnings 14 percent higher. The fiscal fourth quarter results released on Monday were in line with those the company preannounced two weeks ago, which topped Wall Street's estimates.
US computer giant Hewlett-Packard said on Monday that it saw a 14 percent increase in the fourth quarter profits of 2009 despite an eight percent e dip in sales.
Gold scaled a record high on a weak dollar and global stocks jumped on Monday after better-than-expected U.S. home sales data and rosy economic news in the euro zone bolstered appetite for riskier assets.
Hewlett-Packard Co said a strong performance in China and improved profit margins in its services business helped drive quarterly earnings 14 percent higher.
China on Monday accused a U.S. congressional advisory panel of bias for a report in which it said the Chinese government appeared increasingly to be piercing U.S. computer networks to gather useful data for its military.
Hundreds in China's southern city of Guangzhou protested outside government offices on Monday, opposing plans for a large garbage incinerator in a sign of the region's rising public assertiveness over green issues.
A World Bank study that cited Indonesia as the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases was wrong, an Indonesian report sent to the United Nations on Monday said, although it did not provide its own ranking.
SAIC Motor Corp aims to double the sales of its own-brand cars to 180,000 in 2010, its president said on Monday, as the top Chinese automaker seeks to tap the lucrative mid- to higher-end market currently dominated by foreign rivals.
SAIC Motor Corp, China's biggest carmaker, expects to sell about 90,000 of its own-brand vehicles this year, nearly double the original target, its president said on Monday.
Toyota Motor said it expects its China sales growth to slow next year, after strong gains in 2009 fueled by government incentives aimed at boosting the national auto sector during the global downturn.
Car makers from General Motors to Toyota Motor expect China to keep providing much-needed relief from feeble car sales elsewhere next year, even as local brands raise their game to grab a bigger slice of their home market.
General Motors expects its China sales growth to drop dramatically in 2010 as the carmaker nears the end of a year of government stimulus-fueled growth in the world's biggest car market, the head of the company's China operations said on Monday.
China - Europe's biggest carmaker, Volkswagen plans to more than triple its sales in south China by 2018 as a main driver for its strategy to double sales to 2 million units in the country by that time, its China chief said on Sunday.
China Telecom aims to sell BlackBerry handsets and Palm smartphones in China by early next year, as it tries to gain share from its two larger mobile telecom rivals, a source familiar with the situation said on Monday.
U.S. billionaire investor Wilbur Ross plans to buy shares of China Longyuan Power Group, Asia's largest wind power generator, which aims to raise up to $2.2 billion from its Hong Kong initial public offering, according to a preliminary prospectus.
Private equity firm Middle East & Asia Capital Partners Pte (MEACP) plans to introduce a sharia-compliant investment vehicle to its clean energy fund to attract Islamic capital, a company executive said.
